by Tara Wimble
She pulls the sheets back and Bella fumbles to get underneath them, still dressed, while distracted by the ease of which Jacque slides in next to her.
Her head falls to Jacque’s chest almost instantly. There she feels her heart pounding against Bella’s cheek and aches.
There’s no thanks that can fully describe what she knows Bella gained from this. Jacque cradles Bella’s head to her, kissing the top only when she feels Bella wrap her arms around her.
*
It gets a little harder each time to restrain herself, a little harder to justify not taking it just that tiny step forward because it would be so easy and yet, not at all.
There’s a barrier that falls and she could see exactly when it did in Bella’s mind.
Getting Jacque naked is basically her new favorite thing. Probably only followed by making out with a naked Jacque. Followed on then by being almost entirely clothed throughout this whole endeavor.
Jacque had thought she knew what sexual frustration was and then there was this which surpassed anything she’d ever had to deal with before. But in the best way possible.
Mostly.
Jacque’s discovered there’s only so much she can take when she’s got Bella squirming in her lap and she’s desperately trying to hide how badly she wants to be touched. Or how much she wants to touch Bella. And that’s a lot.
She’s starting to resent cutoffs and shorts and stupid jegging type pants. All of them tease, none of them deliver.
And it only gets worse in these moments when they go to the gym because getting out of shape is not an option at this point and Bella does shit like decide that wearing her shit isn’t mandatory halfway through.
It’s a little hard to spot her, whatever she is, her Bella, on a bench press when she’s struck with the irrepressible need to lick her abs halfway through.
There’s just a little bit of a problem. No worries, it’s not anything she can’t handle.
But just in case she takes first shower after the gym and settles in for a long nap in their bed.
Alone.
It’s all a bit worrying then when she wakes from the short nap she was taking on their bed, post-gym, to Bella sitting on her side with a coffee. “You know, you’re kind of a loud sleeper.”
Jacque flops onto her front. “I don’t snore.”
Bella licks her lips and holds her cup on her knee. “It’s more that you talk. In your sleep.”
Jacque lifts her head from the pillow. “What?”
There’s definitely a smirk there. The stupidest and smuggest of smirks to ever exist. Jacque rolls onto her side. “Bella.”
“Jacque.” Bella sips her coffee.
She’s going to have to ask, isn’t she. “What exactly did you think you heard me say-”
Bella does not need glasses. She’s not reading. She’s not blind. But she’s wearing them and somehow it makes Jacque even more mortified when she clears her throat and tells her. “The phrase, ‘boob privileges’ was definitely used in your one-sided conversation.”
“That could mean any number of things.” Jacque grumbles, burying face first into her pillow to hide her burning red face from view.
“I did consider that.” Bella’s damn smirk grows. “But then you started making like, grabby hands motions-”
“Fucking hell.” Jacque groans. “You have no proof.”
“Oh don’t be so sure.” Bella holds up her phone and displays it just out of Jacque’s reach. She touches a few screens and turns up the volume. “Should I press play?”
“You didn’t.” Jacque protests but Bella laughs and presses play anyway.”Enough!”
Whether Bella actually had a video or not is made irrelevant as it’s quickly turned off and Jacque is left, red faced, to confess to something that probably is true. The words ‘boob privileges’ have definitely been uttered from her lips in some way or another in the last few weeks.
Bella puts down the coffee and the phone on the bedside table and insinuates herself so she’s laying next to Jacque, it’s a position they’re not unfamiliar with, especially not now. “So, boob privileges, huh?”
“It doesn’t sound as fun when you say it.” Bella shrugs and takes another drink just as Jacque mutters; “Probably because you already have them.”
She says it right as Bella’s turned back to take a sip of her drink and luckily Bella manages to spit her coffee back into the cup and not on the bed.
“Jacque!” Bella shouts out when she’s done sputtering.
Despite her position Jacque starts giggling. In direct contrast to her reproachful tone Bella wraps her arms around Jacque’s back, pulling them flush together.
“I like my boob privileges.” Bella mumbles, kissing Jacque for the first time since she’s been in the room. “I don’t think I’m giving them back if that’s okay.”
She makes a weak noise of protest that falls through when Bella kisses her neck as well. “That’s not really what that means.”
Bella takes Jacque’s hand from where it’s resting respectfully low on her side and places it right on the side of her body, right over her ribs. “Is this it?”
Jacque feels her throat dry out and speaking is like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together. She has to clear her throat to even get words out. “Uh, not quite.”
Her hand is moved up to Bella’s shoulder and the smirk only intensifies. “Now?”
Jacque shakes her head and swallows hard.
“Show me then.” Bella challenges her to take.
She wills her hand not to shake and the whole thing makes her feel like she’s about to touch her first boob, which is entirely too ridiculous of an idea for her to entertain.
Actually, trying to entertain the thought is stifling so she stops doing that and starts getting Bella underneath her. That’s always fun for her.
From the colour rising in Bella’s cheeks like the arching of her back, she’ll guess it’s fun for her too.
She rolls up Bella’s cutoff until it’s just under her bra. Her gentle kisses to her ribs offer up a confused protest from her flushed partner. “This was definitely set out as a boob thing.”
“Oh it is.” Jacque’s body shuffles comfortably between Bella’s legs and that provokes an interesting reaction. “It’s also a stomach thing. And a hip bones thing. And a ‘my lips on your body’ thing.”
“Lips?” Bella makes a noise that’s close to a whimper without it being inappropriate for polite company.
Jacque dips her head and kisses the edge where her bra sits. “Don’t worry. Hands first.”
Bella’s head falls back. “Fuck.”
Jacque rises up her body and her hand does as well. Bella’s body keens upwards into her touch. Hindered by her bra, Jacque can only grope inelegantly listening to the falling chain of ‘fuck’s that fall out of Bella’s mouth. She buries her head against Bella’s neck and laughs. “We’re working up to that, remember?”
She gets pushed away so quickly that she barely has time to be offended or mourn the loss of her advancement when Bella is snapping the back of her bra open and pulling it off, keeping her cutoff on. “Fucking hell, Jacque.”
All previous jokes aside, when Bella arches up against her body and her hands are guided, they’re guided over soft skin and to the sound of tiny breaking whimpers coming from Bella’s mouth as her hands trace and trail, and fuck.
Committing this to memory is second to everything. The openness in how Bella voices her responses turns her on quicker than she expected. Her thumb brushes over a hard nipple and that’s when Bella grabs the back of her hair, tight. She loses herself in the moment and the next thing she knows Bella is kissing her deeply. Promises, promises- she won’t push but she let’s Bella know exactly what she’d do with her mouth if she got the chance.
Bella’s grip on her hair falls to her shirt and she wastes no time in pulling it up her back and off.
Jacque feels her own edge embarrassingly close. God, she needs that chance to come
sooner rather than later.
For her sake as well as Bella’s.
*
“You weren’t in bed.”
Bella doesn’t look over her shoulder because she’s watching the level of the water and waiting for the right moment to pour in various bubble producing products.
“You got out of bed to run a bath?”
Bella chuckles to herself at how slightly peeved Jacque sounds. “I wanted one.”
“I wanted you in bed.”
Bella takes a sharp breath in. God. She dips her hand in the water, testing the temperature, before she glances over. She clenches a fist into her sleep shorts because Jacque only bothered to dress in the overly baggy white shirt and sweats that she discarded last night. She stares and Jacque whistles for her to look up at her face. “Go- Sorry.”
“Don’t.” Jacque laughs. “I was worried I’d scared you away.”
“You didn’t. You definitely didn’t-” Bella is quick to exclaim. The opposite in fact. She turns off the flowing water quickly and rushes through pouring out the stuff for the bubble bath while Jacque looks on in a mixture of confusion and amusement. “I just realized something when I woke up this morning.”
Next to her. Bella wipes her hand on her shorts because she’s not going to be in them for long. Waking up next to Jacque had been the last piece of whatever puzzle she’d pulled out way back in Germany. When Jacque had told her that she was in love with her. That’s when it had started. That planted seed of something else that toppled through her mind like dominoes. It had taken her much longer than Jacque, and even in London she hadn’t been able to face up to her actions and feelings, to get here.
To feel this intensely for someone.
Waking up with Jacque holding her, feeling her warm skin and remembering her etching the night with her, it had felt right. It had pushed everything into place.
“That-?” Jacque has a hint of nerves in her voice that Bella doesn’t hesitate to take away.
“That I want to be with you.”
She gets choked up just saying it out loud and it’s nothing compared to the expression Jacque takes on. Taken aback and fumbling with a joyful smile. “You want to be with me?”
Bella darts her gaze down, blushing. “I just said that-”
Jacque reaches out for the front of Bella’s shirt, catching her collar to get her stepping forward. “I wanted to hear you say it again.”
Between her calling her a jerk and kissing that stupid smile, Jacque seems to remember why Bella was so absent from their bed this morning.
“So, the bath?”
“Oh.” The mirrors have fogged up and the bubbles have spread across the surface and Bella makes an approving noise. “I was gonna wake you up but you beat me to it.”
“Right?” Jacque still isn’t getting it. And Bella is meant to be the one still trying to catch up.
She figures Jacque starts to figure out what she’s suggesting when she pulls her shirt over her head.
“You did something for me the other night.” Bella states. “And I didn’t know I needed you to just let me, be okay and figure out all this shit on my own but you did and-”
Half of Jacque’s brain is listening to the words Bella is saying, the other half is watching her pause as she snaps the back of her bra open and peels it from her body. Only then does Jacque step forward. “You don’t have to, I mean, if you’re not comfortable or anything-”
“Stop.”
Bella can remember a lot about London. About how it made her feel. What she doesn’t really remember is intimacy. Jacque had tried to press that upon her but her head was messed up. She was having sex after winning a bronze medal, drunk off winning and off drink and Bella had tried to leave. Jacque had tried to kiss her, overwhelming a sense of rationality and the knowledge that they were getting a divorce. There were a million reasons not to go into that room and get into bed with Jacque, but the ones she listened to were worth more.
She may have taken a long time from walking out of that room in the morning to figure what it meant but she’s here now. And Jacque isn’t going to continue to hide behind the fact that she might not be ready for this because who is ever ready?
Bella pushes her shorts, and her underwear, down letting them pool on the floor as the stand toe to toe. It’s a role reversal from last night.
“If you’re getting in-” Bella stares up. “You have to take off your clothes.”
Jacque’s sigh is a full body shudder. She can only look down at the cuts of Bella’s naked body she can see, and touch with the hand that slides over her hip. She looks about to say something else, which Bella cuts off. “I’m sure. I’m ready. I’m whatever you’re about to say- just stop.”
Bella dips her fingers under the band of the sweats Jacque wears. She’s not wearing anything under them. “We’re not having sex. We’re cuddling in a bubble bath.” She spots the tightness in Jacque’s jaw. “Cool your jets for now, okay?”
Jacque holds her hands. Bella grins into a brief kiss that Jacque follows with a laugh. “Don’t be cute.”
It’s a request that never gets fulfilled though the look on Jacque’s face when Bella gets into the warm bath after her comes close.
One of the best parts about their Chicago apartment is the bath tub. It’s bigger than average due to the need for it to sometimes double up as an ice bath after practices. It’s one of the things that Bella hasn’t always taken advantage of. Now, sinking into the water with her back to Jacque, she plans on taking full advantage of the blessing.
Maybe it’s the fact that she’s naked, or that Jacque is struck speechless at the expanse of her bare back and how it feels so close to her chest, but the only sound that echoes for a few minutes is the slapping of the soapy water against their skin and the sides of the tub.
There’s no conscious decision but Bella twigs that Jacque has doused her hand with some sort of shower gel and groans happily as Jacque rubs her hands over her back. She kneads her knuckles against her spine and shoulders.
Her hair is only damp at the ends. Bella shudders as Jacque washes her hands over her shoulders and down her back again. She has her hands resting on Jacque’s knees, rubbing her thumbs over the wet skin. They’re surrounded by bubbles and Bella is surrounded by Jacque.
“Still with me?”
Bella breathes in and settles back against Jacque in the bath. “Yeah. Yeah,” Jacque trails her hand down Bella’s right shoulder to the crook in her elbow and Bella feels the anticipation of wanting Jacque to touch her. This is about last night, opening up to Jacque like this is all about the way Jacque made her feel.
She’s pressed right up against Jacque, between her legs, when she feels a kiss pressed to the base of her neck. “Good.” Another kiss. “Because I’m gonna need you to pinch me right now because I’m not sure if you’re actually in here with me naked or I’m dreaming.”
Bella doesn’t pinch her but she does move her hand from her elbow to wrap around her waist. Then it’s all damp skin and the sound of Jacque breathing in sharply.
“God,” Jacque’s murmur caresses the back of her neck. She can guess to why she’s reacting like this. It’s one thing to have someone touch you, like they have for a few weeks with Bella wrapped up in barriers and Jacque completely exposed to her, but another to share something like this. Skin and skin, free rein to touch and to just-
Jacque pushes her damp hair to one side and kisses her shoulder. “You’re soft.”
Bella chuckles. “All that maple syrup.”
Her laughter is mirrored. Jacque’s amusement breaks down into sincerity, another kiss, and a quieter murmur of ‘I love you’ that Jacque assumes she doesn’t hear.
But she does and it makes sitting with her, water and her arms wrapped around her, inspire an overwhelming feeling in her chest. Something she can name but doesn’t feel able to just yet.
For now the physical is easier to indulge in. The blunt raking of Jacque’s nails against her ribs gives her a pl
easant shock of arousal and reminds her of the thoughts she’s been entertaining for a week or more.
She wants to have sex. With Jacque. It sounds like such a simple thing but in her mind it’s become anything but. Sex with Jacque is different than having Jacque naked in her bed and touching her while the flashes of involuntary near orgasms pass over her face. It’s different seeing that and wanting that in a new situation. Wanting to be the one that Jacque touches, kisses and fucks.
Her own hands slide over Jacque’s knuckles and her fingers flutter by her own hips. She wants to dip down further, invite Jacque to touch her, but she’s dizzy off the rush the thought sends to her head.
She’s comfortable with it all now. The night that they had sex for the first time was coupled with so much shame and regret but she knows that the physicality, the want she has to be pinned underneath Jacque by an inescapable need to be touched by her.
Jacque may have waited longer than her for all this to happen but now she’s caught up. They share the wave and the affection now, and it slots into place, with Jacque breathing against her, that she’s waiting for no reason. Nothing is in her way anymore.
When she pushes out of Jacque’s embrace, Jacque immediately assumes she’s getting out and sits up straight. Instead she turns and kneels. A cascade of water falls from her body, parting at her legs and trailing back into the bubbled surface of bath water.
Jacque visibly swallows at the sight of her and she’s filled with a power that she didn’t feel two summers ago.
She can see thought in Jacque’s mind. Fucking dripping water running and rolling down the front of her body. In adjusting for her to kneel Jacque’s leg has slipped between her knees and Bella can either get closer or hold onto the sides of the bath.
Jacque squeezes her eyes shut for a second.
“Jacque-”
“If you tell me to cool my jets I might just-”
Bella decides to move forward. Jacque’s thigh jolts up between her legs, jerking the bubbles around them and Bella’s hands to her shoulders.